Theta
by Sass-Bot
Summary: Finally done with their senior year, Yugi and his friends are parting ways, heading off to university, therefore, as a promise of everlasting friendship, Anzu implores them to perform a charm called "Sachiko Ever After" However, upon completing it, things go horribly wrong and 9 friends must fight for their lives as well as their sanity. [Post-Canon] [Warnings and Pairings in CH1]
1. Abyss

_**Hello! So this is a plot bunny that just wouldn't leave me. I've always wanted to write something about Corpse Party, but the right idea wouldn't come to me -that is, until now.**_

_**SHIPS:**_** [Anzu/Yugi], [Shizuka/Honda], possible [Rebecca/Mokuba] (though I'm no good at romance so if you're here for the romantic aspect of this you may be sorely disappointed)**

_**WARNING:**_**This story will contain body horror, gore, character death and just all around unpleasantness, so if that isn't your cup of tea, please don't proceed. I mean, honestly, it's a Corpse Party crossover; if you weren't expecting this coming into the fanfic, well I don't know what to say.**

**_I'll be using Japanese names in this fanfic, but for Jounouchi, I hope you dont mind me using "Joey"_  
**

_**This story also takes place POST-SERIES, in case you didn't read the summary -meaning that there will be no Yami Yugi or Yami Bakura. Sorry about that.**_

_**The first chapter's a bit fluffy, truth be told, but it does get darker later on...**_

* * *

**Chapter One: **Abyss

_And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you._

**Friedrich Nietzsche**

* * *

It was a dreary smog that lingered in the air above Domino City, like a torrent of bittersweet emotion, beautiful yet vague and unsettling in its presence. A solitary breeze danced and swirled around the town square, passing by the head of the tycoon prodigy, Seto Kaiba, his lips moving, looping on an electronic billboard just large enough to house his self-importance. His voice spoke over the head of Domino City idles about whatever was important to Kaiba at the given time, but it was nothing but an ambient buzz in the ears of a young blonde, crossing the square to a car park nearby.

The flickering lamps painted a lonely scene of the small woman all alone in the large lot. The buildings around her cast large shadows over the cars in great contrast to the bright and cheerful square just beside the lot. It was almost eerily quiet, and had the young woman been easily scared, she would have shifted her pace from a brisk walk to a frantic jog.

A gold and violet striped gift bag swung at her side jovially as she approached a dark convertible forced smack in the middle of two expensive looking SUV's. Placing the gift bag in the passenger seat, she pulled out her phone, which had been silently vibrating in her purse for quite some time. She flipped it open and spat into the speaker, "For the _last time_, Joey, I'm _not _picking you up! So take a cab and leave me alone!"

"Mai?"

The blonde woman's face twitched. The voice that had come out of the aged flip phone was not as nagging nor as gruff as she had anticipated; it was rather soft and timid, and also a pleasant surprise, so with trepidation and a bit of mortification, she took a glance at the caller ID. It _was _Jounouchi -or at least his phone.

After a moment's recollection, she spoke again, "Shizuka, honey, is that you?"

There was a delicate inhalation on the other end of the phone and a cheerful yet slightly hesitant "Yes."

"How are you doing? It's been a while since I heard your adorable voice!" Mai's voice took a complete 180 turn, changing from her stern _Jounouchi _tone to her _everyone else _tone. Mai was especially fond of Shizuka Kawai, who she likened to her own baby sister.

The teenager giggled and replied, "I've been great. I aced my finals this year so mom let me come to Domino City."

Mai smiled gently. "Atta girl! I knew you'd do well. So you're staying with your brother now?"

"Yeah! Katsuya just picked me up from the airport. I wanna surprise Anzu today!"

"I'm sure she'll love it!"

"_But..._ " But? "I'll need a ride to get there," she added.

Mai mused for a moment, biting her lip. She felt something moist on the bridge of her nose and put two slender fingers to the top of her hair. With a sigh she realized it was just about to start raining and she was standing alone in a parking lot wearing a tank top and a mini-skirt.

The wind rustled the woman's golden curls and roused goosebumps on her arms, and with it came the sound of thunder, though preoccupied with her phone call, she hadn't quite caught the lightning that preceded it. She really did have to get out of that rain…

* * *

It was a quarter to six, yet the view from Anzu's living room window looked like a giant monster had swallowed the world whole and left in its place a hypnotic black abyss, one that threatened to engulf her house. After travelling with the Pharaoh and helping him save the world from eternal darkness and misery, she couldn't quite say that she was afraid of the dark. Darkness was feeble and darkness was fragile, and Anzu had the power of light in her heart and the hearts of her friends.

However, as she stared on into the void through the glass, she saw black, and she saw the tightness in her brow and the frown on her face reflected before her. She drew the curtain over the window and headed towards her sofa, curling up into a ball and keeping her eyes fixed on her television screen.

The television was turned off, she could swear it was, but somewhere deep inside, where her human eyes could only just see, two small eyes stared back at her, and she couldn't bring herself to look away.

"Hey, Anzu…"

Yugi plopped down on the couch beside her. He had been helping Anzu prepare her farewell party and had been at her house from early that morning, though their friends would probably have a thing or two to say about what else those two could have been doing all alone in a house for eight hours, and their claims probably wouldn't have been too far from the truth.

They had begun dating just over a year ago, after they all bid the Pharaoh farewell, and nobody who knew them could say the didn't see this development coming. Thankfully for Anzu, the past couple of years had seen a growth spurt in Yugi, so she didn't feel so tall when she was around him, not that she had minded the height difference before. His current height was just a bit more comfortable for her; that was all.

Anzu grinned slightly and rested her head on her boyfriend's shoulder, her eyes not breaking contact with the crimson slits she saw across the room in her television screen.

"You okay?" Yugi asked, his hand moving gently to her face to push a strand of her chestnut hair out of her face. He felt like something was wrong with Anzu, but he didn't question it; after all, she was moving to America in a week, so a little melancholy wasn't too strange an emotion to have.

Just a year ago, they had all thought that they would be together forever, always by each others' sides, and when Yugi looked down at his hand, he could still see the markings Anzu had drawn so long ago, a mark of their everlasting friendship. Now, in their senior year, he realized that it was inevitable that they would separate and follow their own paths. How foolish of him to think otherwise, to think that they could carry on in life together when there were so many opportunities ripe for the taking. How selfish of him to think that, no matter what, wherever life took him, his friends would be right by his side. They all had dreams and ambitions, and he knew that holding them back would be like stabbing years of friendship in the back.

The last thing he expected, however, was for Anzu to be the first to leave him -his beautiful, radiant beacon of light, the warmth in his heart, his pillar of strength. Out of all the friendships he had formed, hers was the one that had lasted the longest, having been friends from childhood, before he knew what love was, before he knew the ecstasy of her name on his tongue and her delicate hands on his skin. She had stood by him the longest, supported him with everything she had, never doubting him, never faltering -and now it was his turn to return the favor by offering his support in this huge step she was taking.

The young girl let out a long sigh as she moved away from Yugi and reached out to the coffee table, retrieving a piece of paper cut into the shape of a person. She held it to her chest as she leaned back into the sofa again and into Yugi's arms. It was her last line of defense, her insurance that no matter how far away she was from Domino City, she would stay in her friends' hearts forever.

"I'm not okay, Yugi," she murmured, nuzzling her face into his shoulder. "I don't think…"

"Everything will be okay." The reply was short and so very contrived. He couldn't believe he was saying this. He couldn't believe he had so many things to say to her, to let her know, and all he could say was that. "God, I'll miss you so much…" he whispered, his lips making their way to the top of her head, trembling.

The reverie was broken by the sound of the doorbell. It was time for the festivities to start, but neither of them felt like celebrating after all…

* * *

"You're early, Mokuba."

The car door opened with a soft click, but that click was all it took to startle the young Kaiba out of his thoughts. It wasn't like they were important thoughts, really… With the success of Kaiba Land and the Kaiba brothers' faces on the front of every business magazine in print at the moment, there was little to be worried about. Each of the boys was busy with something and that's how it has been since the grand opening of the amusement park. Of course, the younger boy couldn't rely on his brother for everything; so just as Seto slaved day and night to become the man he was, it was Mokuba's turn. But this day was different -he was taking a break to say goodbye to a dear friend.

The voice that startled him belonged to an associate of his, namely, Rebecca Hopkins, a 15 year old girl who looked out of place in the Japanese backdrop, her all-American blonde hair soaked to the roots and her sapphire eyes glistening below dark lashes. She shuffled into the limousine, taking a seat opposite of the billionaire.

The raven haired teen grinned at the girl and leaned back against his seat nonchalantly. "Looks you were early, too," he replied, gesturing to her raccoon eyes and devastated mascara. "Need a tissue?"

"Nah, I've got my own…" she said, rummaging in her oversized purse and extracting a wad of hastily folded tissues.

"Well, you didn't have to walk all the way here from your hotel. I could have had my driver pick you up from there!"

"No, it's fine. I was getting Anzu something from a cute antique place around the corner from here." She patted her purse, which, fortunately for her and all the things stuffed inside of it, was made from plastic (_designer plastic, mind you!_). "Just didn't expect it to rain so hard…" She unfolded one tissue and slowly, methodically massaged under her eyes.

"Well, that's Domino City for ya!" Mokuba exclaimed with a chuckle.

Rebecca smirked, her eyes still staring at the ceiling of the limo as she wiped off her eyeliner. "They say you and your brother control the weather. Is that true?"

The boy let out a loud laugh and replied with a wide smile. "Maybe we do."

The car was silent for a moment, as the blonde held up a mirror and traced around her eyes with a black pen, applying again what the downpour had mercilessly undone. Her bubblegum lips parted slightly and her breathing shallow, as her friend watched on in fascination. Her eyes caught his entirely unsubtle stare, a blur beneath the frame of the canvas and her bubblegum lips move. "What?" she asks.

"How can you do that?" the boy voices in awe, as his companion's fingers moved the pen back and forth slowly and rhythmically.

"Do what?"

"Draw eyeliner like that without messing up."

Without missing a beat, she said, "I sacrificed my soul to the devil in exchange for perfection"

Mokuba pursed his lips, holding in a laugh. "No, really."

"Yes, really. I mean how else do you think I became the youngest Duel Monsters prodigy and graduated from college before I even grew pair of boobs." The girl stuck her tongue out at the boy whose eyes were now anxiously trying not to glance at her bosom. Satisfied with her work, she closed the pen and put it back in her makeup bag, pulling out a mascara brush instead.

Deciding to let it go, Mokuba just smiled kindly at her. "Y'know, you don't need to do all this to look good. I think you look great already!"

She put down her brush for a moment to roll her eyes at the billionaire. "You're so naïve, Mokuba. I'm not trying to look great. I'm trying to look _flawless_, and it's not like I'm doing it for _you _anyway!"

"Well, whoever you're doing it for would probably be satisfied even if you went without makeup!" he claimed defensively, thinking bitterly of Yugi, who his friend had had a crush on for quite a while now, not that she would openly admit it now that the apple of her eye was very happily dating someone else.

Rebecca sighed and muttered. "I'm doing it for myself, and my standards are ridiculously high." She lifted her brush and gave her lashes a couple of quick strokes before sheathing it and placing it back in her bag.

Observing the glum expression on Mokuba's face, she let out an airy giggle. "Aww, Mokie. Don't get too upset. Thank you, for the compliment. I really do appreciate it." And with that, her friend's expression lightened quite a bit and a bashful redness made its way to his cheeks.

The young Kaiba was about to open his mouth in a reply when he felt the limo stop, followed by the sound of the dividing window unlatching and the driver's face appearing in its stead.

"Mr. Kaiba, we have arrived."

Mokuba looked over at Rebecca and said, "Well, this is it."

"Yes. Let's get going, Mr. Kaiba," she teased.

As the door was opened by the limousine driver, Mokuba replied, "Well, as long as you lead the way, because I've never actually been to Anzu's place."

"Sure," she reassured him, stepping under the man's umbrella and lending a hand to the boy, helping him out of the vehicle.

* * *

"Anzu!" The collective shout nearly deafened the poor girl, and the force with which she was attacked consequently nearly immobilized her, and her only crime was opening the door. Yugi smiled warmly at the people who were now piled on top of his girlfriend. The first to arrive to the party were Shizuka, Mai, and Jounouchi, with abundant grins, hugs, kisses and tears.

"You guys are early as always," he remarked, pulling Jou in for a hug. "I hope you didn't get soaked in that rain."

"Yeah," Anzu added as she pulled away from a tearful Shizuka. "I'm so sorry. If I had known the weather would be like this, I would have made my party another day."

Mai grinned widely and pinched her worried friend's cheeks with her two hands. "Aww, Sweets! Don't worry about it! Besides, it was just a little drizzle. Nothing to worry your cute little head about!"

As if to deny and defy, a sharp flash lit up the room, followed shortly by the low rumble of thunder and the formation of a slight crease between Anzu's eyebrows. "I hope everyone else makes it here okay…" she muttered.

As the words left her mouth, two figures appeared in the doorway behind her guests, where she had left the front door open. A damp Rebecca and a considerably drier Mokuba pushed through the crowd and presented themselves before the hostess.

"Hey, Anzu!" and "Can I use your bathroom!" were yelped simultaneously.

Yugi, feeling a bit left out of the greetings, but still content, let out a chuckle and grabbed the American girl by the shoulder gently, leading her towards the bathroom, leaving Anzu to fend for herself amongst their sorrowful friends and their bittersweet tears. The younger girl smiled graciously as she and her giant purse entered the washroom, leaving Yugi behind to wander absent-mindedly back to the living room.

The front door was now securely shut and Anzu was sitting on the couch, where she had been seated previously, surrounded by her friends. Her face was kind and smiling, but her eyes were hollow, staring squarely at the television screen, holding her thin, white doll against her heart, letting it feel her uneven heartbeat. Something was amiss, and she couldn't quite place her finger on it.

"So, I'll bet you were pretty surprised when my baby sis showed up on your doorstep! Eh? Eh?" Joey declared proudly, unconsciously placing his younger sister in a one-armed death grip. "She was so excited, sayin' 'Joey! Joey! Take me to see Anzu before she leaves!'" he said in a falsetto, letting go of Shizuka to make a pleading gesture with his hands. "'Course, me bein' the coolest brother in the world, I decided to grant her fragile little heart her wish."

"Wow, Joey, you're _so _amazing," Mai praised sarcastically. "Just don't forget who drove your ass here."

"Hey! Hey!" he snapped, shaking his fist. "I coulda come here on my own, y'know!"

"Without a license? I doubt it!" she told him, closing her eyes and shrugging.

"Joey, you don't have a license?" Mokuba piped up curiously.

The older boy groaned and sunk his head low. "Ya see what ya did, Mai. Now this kid ain't takin' me seriously anymore!" He then flashed a great, wide grin at the boy. "Y'see, Mokuba, I coulda gotten my license a long time ago, but I just haven't had the time!"

"More like no examiner in his right mind would give you a license!" Mai interjected, letting out a haughty laugh, much to the blonde boy's frustration.

"Say whatever you want, but I -"

However, he was forced to cut his statement short when his sister's voice cut through gently. "Hey, Anzu… You've been awfully quiet. Are you okay?" The younger Jounouchi sibling was seated right beside the brunette and placed a comforting hand on her forearm as she spoke.

"Yeah, Shizuka, I'm fine. I'm just kinda worried about Honda and Bakura… That storm is getting pretty bad…" she uttered softly, leaning into the younger girl slightly and offering her a small tilt in the corners of her lips, the beginnings of a smile.

Mokuba spoke this time, from his position on the loveseat to the right. "It's strange… The weather forecast predicted cloudy weather, but that's about it. Forecasts can be wrong though…"

"It's raining pretty early in the year though." Yugi made his presence known and sat beside Mai on the already cramped sofa; it was the closest he could get to Anzu. "Even for Domino City."

Everyone nodded and Joey spoke up. "Well, don't worry too much about them, Anzu. Those guys are pretty tough. They can take care of themselves. A little rain won't scare 'em!"

As he said this, Rebecca emerged from the bathroom, and sprinted over to them, holding out a small royal blue gift-wrapped box. "W-What's this?" the brunette asked, her gaze briefly leaving the abyss of the television screen to look at her young friend. "You didn't have to -"

"Are you kidding? How else will you remember me?" the younger girl asked, shoving the box into the dancer's lap. "It's from Otogi too since he's out of the country right now."

"Hey, Becky!" Joey called out, always switching the attention to himself. "You ain't the only one that got her something! Me and Shizuka got her something too!" Extracting a small green box from his sister's purse, in painful disregard to her privacy.

"Hey, me too!" Mokuba exclaimed, producing his own box. "It's from me and Seto, even though he couldn't be here today…"

"We all got you gifts, Sweetie," Mai said, gesturing to the gift bag, which once dangled on her wrist, now resting on the coffee table in front of them.

Several consecutive rings of the doorbell and a series of loud knocks interrupted the group and Yugi stood up and rushed to get the door. When he came back, it was with two familiar beaming faces.

"Hey, guys! I hope you didn't start the party without us!"

Many voices gasped in happiness and surprise, and a cacophony of "Ryou" and "Honda" rang out through the small living area. The final members of their gathering had finally arrived safely and everything was going without a hitch, so all cause for worry was gone. Anzu could breathe easily now that this small weight on her heart had been lifted. All nine were present and accounted for and she could finally do what she wanted to do with them.

She cleared her throat and stood up, breaking eye contact with the crimson glare that had had her ensnared the whole night."Um, guys… Can I say something?" she said weakly.

"Of course, Anzu. Speak your mind," Yugi replied, calmly rubbing her shoulder with one of his hands.

She smiled and let out a deep breath. "Well, as you know, I'm… I'm going to America soon, and we might not see each other for a long time. And all of us… We've been through so much together. We've been at each other's sides, supporting each other, helping each other, for years, through thick and thin, and you guys don't know how happy each and every one of you makes me. Your happiness and friendship got me through so much these past years and I don't know what I'd do without you… or what I'm going to do without you… when I leave…" She felt her breath get caught in her throat and shuddered slightly, placing one of her hands to her throat. "I don't know what I'm going to do, guys…" Her voice broke going through that last sentence, but she persevered and continued speaking, trying to swallow back her weakness and speak with clarity. "I just wanted to try something… something to keep us together forever, so that, even when I'm thousands of kilometers away, you'll still be there for me, like you always have." She looked down and tried to wipe her tears with the back of her hand, holding on to the proxy doll with her other hand.

Shizuka stepped towards Anzu and embraced her warmly. "Don't worry, we'll always be there for you. And you don't need to do anything to make that fact any more true than it already is."

The older girl buried her head in the redhead's shoulder and let herself be embraced. "Thank you, Shizuka."

"Aww! You're making me tear up!" Hiroto proclaimed loudly.

"Well, look who's getting in touch with his feminine side!" Joey announced, earning a heavy smack to the ear courtesy of Mai Kujaku. "Yeesh, sorry," he murmured then said, "Well, anyway, my sister's right. We won't ever abandon you. You can count on that!" He extended his arm, holding his thumb up and smiling, and in spite of his mockery of Honda, his eyes glistened when he talked. "So what is it that you wanted to try?" he asked.

"It's a ritual I found on an occult website…It's kinda silly, but I thought we could do it to -"

Ryou interrupted Anzu's speech with a firm statement. "Anzu, rituals are dangerous. Are you sure it's safe?"

"Come _on, _Bakura!" Honda said. "Don't tell me you actually believe in rituals?"

The silver-haired boy frowned and said, "Well, it's not that I believe in them… I'm just superstitious to a reasonable extent. I mean, aren't any of you?"

"There wasn't really anything negative in the article I read. And as long as we don't make any mistakes, then we don't have anything to worry about!" Anzu declared cheerfully, though Ryou's words sent a nasty twinge of fear and hesitation into her resolve.

When no one else would speak, Yugi did, trying to sound as calm and content as he could. "Tell us the instructions then, Anzu."

She grinned and held up the proxy doll, a white paper figure, shaped like a stick man. "It's called 'Sachiko Ever After' and it's supposed to keep everyone who does it together forever -like everlasting friendship. And even though I know we'll be friends forever, this is just a small guarantee." She paused for a moment to survey all the gently smiling faces in front of her, affirming in her mind that she indeed wished to look upon these faces forever. "Okay, so first of all, each of us holds on real tight to a part of the doll. Second, we all have to say 'Sachiko, we beg of you' once for each one of us -that means nine times -but don't say it out loud, say it in your heart. And the last thing we do is we pull on the doll until it rips and we each keep the piece that rips off. And as long as we have that piece of paper, we'll be friends forever."

"That sounds easy enough," Mokuba commented.

Anzu nodded. "Yeah, but make sure you say the chant exactly _nine _times. Even if you mess up, don't repeat it or it counts as one time."

"Yeah, yeah! I got it! Let's do this!" Joey exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Alright, Joey! Come here…" Anzu held out the doll with one hand and waited as each of her friends gripped their own part of the doll.

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_Sachiko, we beg of you._

_**RIP**_

…

"_Hey, wh-why's the floor shaking!"_

"_Hang on, everyone!"_

"_Help, I'm falling!"_

"_What's going on!"_

* * *

_**And so ends the first chapter. I look forward to your feedback!**_


	2. Monster

**_Chapter 2 has arrived, and so have our unfortunate protagonists-to Heavenly Host that is..._**

**_Note_****_:_****_ I have this fanfic take place in 2006, 3 years after the English manga was released and 2 years before the events of the original PSP Corpse Party game -in case any of y'all were wondering._**

**_Also the Nietzsche quote thing isn't exactly a theme, just a coincidence._**

* * *

**Chapter Two: **Monster

_He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster._

**Friedrich Nietzsche**

* * *

The muffled sounds of thunder and the creaking of distant floorboards were the only sounds to be heard in the room, as a young blonde was beginning to regain her consciousness slowly. Her violet eyes could hardly see a thing, only a blurry ceiling and an impregnable darkness. Her hands made their way to her face to rub her eyes, only to have her rub something wet and sticky into the delicate organs.

"Ah!" Mai yelped, bringing her hands away from her face. Whatever it was that she had rubbed into her eyes was stinging severely, and she blinked furiously, trying to alleviate the pain. She wiped her hands down on her tank top and then brought her cleaner hands back to her eyes and slowly rubbed away the ache. Her tears had made the pain caused by the unidentified substance significantly softer, but still, a throbbing echo remained.

Once she had blinked away all the tears and could see clearly (or as clearly as one could in a pitch black room), she pushed up from the floor in order to stand up. Unexpectedly, her hands slid forward, causing her to fall back onto the ground. _What the hell am I laying in?_

Her hands frantically searched for a dry spot on the ground to push off from and when she had found one, she pushed herself to her feet and began looking around the room from her new vantage point. She could see a lone lit candle flickering around 2 meters away from her, but she couldn't quite tell the dimensions of the room with the amount of visibility the candle allowed. With a sigh, she began to make her way over to the candle, maneuvering around what seemed to be desks and chairs. Was this a classroom?

Her heart almost dropped to the pit of her stomach when one of her heels sunk into the floorboards. It looked like the floor was broken here… _What a dump, _she thought as she struggled to pull her foot out of the hole in the floor. She grunted, tugging her ankle with all her might, but to no avail. Maybe if she took it off of her foot slowly, she would be able to pull it out of the hole more easily.

With a sigh, Mai put her nimble finger in the back strap of her sandal and delicately took her foot out of the hole. She slowly and carefully moved her shoe, twisting it and turning it to make it easier, however, she was met with an unforeseen force of resistance on the shoe's part and it slipped right out of her fingertips and through the hole. "No! Wait!" she cried out into the blackness, as though her shoe would hear her call and soar back up to her. Sure, she could simply go to the lower level and find it, but getting around an unfamiliar place with only one shoe was sure to be difficult. Unfortunately, when your only shoe was a single sandal with a three-inch heel, walking around with one shoe wasn't so easy, so with a fair bit of reluctance, she slipped out of her second shoe, hanging it by the strap on her wrist, and opted for walking around with no shoes at all.

The candle was sitting at the teacher's pedestal in the classroom, illuminating a chalkboard that looked like it had seen better days. "How did I get here?" she murmured as she slowly gripped the small candlestick. She carried her newfound light source over to a window. Maybe if she got a good look at her surroundings, she could figure out where exactly she was. She must have been in some sort of school, and judging by the dismal state the whole room was in, it was probably out of business.

Her examination of the window proved to be fruitless, as there was nothing to be seen outside; it was too dark. It did tell her _something,_ though, and that was the fact that she was very far from civilization. Were she near a town, she would have at least seen a far off streetlamp in the distance, or other buildings, perhaps, that were not so abandoned.

There was a door to her right, but it seemed to be blocked off by a desk. She made her way over to it, setting the candle down on the pedestal on her way, and began to pull as hard as she could, but it wouldn't budge, creaking and moaning in protest at her actions. It was almost as though the desk was nailed to the ground in that spot intentionally.

She took the candle again and looked towards the end of the classroom. There had to be another way out of this room. After all, how had she gotten in here to begin with?

Once again, as she trekked across the classroom, she held her candle low, watching out for any more gaps in the floor. Her feet didn't appreciate the rough surface of the damaged wood below her, but there was nothing she could do until she got her second shoe from the room below. Eventually, she made it back to the spot that in which she had started, only to finally identify the substance that she had rubbed all over her face earlier.

_Blood_.

Fresh crimson, viscous and sticky… She was currently covered in it, but Mai knew for a fact that it wasn't her own blood because she was not injured in any way. Much to her dismay, she didn't need to look far to find the source of the blood, and it was all she could do to keep a firm grip on the candlestick in her hand.

There, on the ground in front of her, not even a meter away from where she had woken up, was a young girl, who looked no older than 15, with her whole torso hollowed out. She looked like someone had neatly cut out her chest and gut with a finely sharpened knife (perhaps a saw), the way one would cut the crust off of a piece of bread. It was obvious that the girl was dead -and what was worse was the fact that she appeared to have only _just_ been killed. She didn't look like she had been dead for even a mere couple of hours. What if whoever did that was still here?

The older woman felt sick looking down at the dead girl below her, setting down her candle and clutching her stomach in pain. She hadn't eaten before going to Anzu's house, so there wasn't much in her stomach, but she still felt the need to empty it out all over the ground where she had been laying. She turned her head away, not wanting to see her vomit mix in with the blood on the ground.

Whoever did this… they must have still been there… That was the only thing Mai could think about at that moment, and her main fear was the idea that she may have been next. And if Mai was here, then what if the rest of her friends were here, too? What if one of them had already ended up like that unfortunate middle school girl? She didn't even want to think about it.

Thankfully, the classroom had a second door near the back, and since there didn't seem to be anything else in this room that she needed to make a note of, she took her candle and made her way out of the room. She silently thanked God that the door was unlocked as she shut it on her way out, leaving that classroom and the horribly mutilated girl behind.

A notable change in the scenery of the corridor, compared to the classroom, was the fact that it was much brighter than the classroom. Sure, it wasn't bright enough to see things clearly, but somehow, the windows did a better job of illuminating the hall than they did illuminating that classroom, and every time lightning struck, she could see more of the deserted and run down hallway.

The silence around her was unnerving, and she felt so lonely and confused. The rain was louder in the hall, echoing loudly against the broken wooden walls, and the stench of something foul was overpowering. Judging by what she had just seen in the room before, she could safely assume that the stench in question was probably death. She didn't want to breathe it in -it felt wrong, but she didn't have the luxury of choice when it came to the air she was able to inhale at the moment.

"Mai, is that you?"

Her head turned swiftly at the sound of her own name on the tongue of someone familiar. She wasn't completely alone.

"Yugi!" she cried out and rushed over to him, cautious not to step in any holes.

Yugi was with her. Her luck was unbelievable! She had found one of her friends so quickly and now she needed to find the other seven. She could imagine that Shizuka was scared out of her wits and hoped with all her heart that the young girl found someone familiar -perhaps even Joey.

"I'm so glad I found you!" she exclaimed, clinging to the boy's hoodie like her life depended on it. "I just woke up in that room over there" -she gestured to the door behind her- "covered in some girl's blood. There's a monster here, Yugi."

Yugi frowned, maintaining his silence for a few moments after Mai had stopped speaking before replying to her. "I… I woke up in there, too, but I didn't see you. Are you sure you were in there?"

"Y-Yes…" Mai told him, slightly taken aback by the way he was speaking. "You must have thought I was the dead girl. And it was pretty dark in there…"

"Yeah, that must be it," he said, smiling insincerely to reassure his friend, though it wasn't like anyone could smile sincerely in a place like this. "I'm just a bit on edge. I mean that earthquake at Anzu's house came out of nowhere… and now we're here."

"We need to find a way out of here," the blonde stated, releasing her grip on Yugi's jacket and looking around the hall. "I took this from that room we woke up in," she said, holding up the candle. "I don't know how long it'll keep burning, but hopefully it'll last until we find our friends _and_ the exit."

He nodded in agreement and added, "Yeah, I mean how big can this place be. It's just an elementary school."

"Right…" Mai agreed, looking behind her at the room that the two were about to abandon. She began to wonder… why hadn't Yugi acknowledged the body inside? Didn't it faze him? Or was it too horrific to talk about? Sure, she didn't quite like the idea of discussing a corpse either, but she needed to say something to someone. Maybe she would tell Joey when she found him…

"I think I saw a staircase this way," Yugi said, as he began moving to the right of their starting point. Mai briskly walked with him, partly since she was a light source now, and partly because she was too afraid to be so much as one step behind her friend.

Sure enough, there was a staircase exactly where Yugi had said. It seems he had looked around a bit while Mai was still unconscious, and if Yugi had wandered around alone for a couple of minutes unharmed, then maybe the threat of a monster lurking somewhere in the school wasn't as great as she had imagined.

The stairwell was more eerie than the hallway itself, making the duo feel like almost anything could be lurking around the corner -perhaps even the bloodthirsty menace that Mai's weary eyes were constantly seeking. What they found, however, was much stranger, causing the young woman to drop to her knees promptly, set her belongings down and hug her own shoulders. It was another corpse, laying against the aged wall, and this one came in the form of frail-looking bones, bleached with age. Judging by the build and the uniform, she guessed that these remains must have once belonged to a middle school girl.

"Yugi…" she called out, her voice shaking. "How long do you think has this person been dead?" The uniform the girl was wearing looked surprisingly out-dated, making Mai feel a bit uneasy.

She noticed her candle being held by someone else and instinctively turned her head towards Yugi to see him carrying it and crouching down beside the body. His hand reached out slowly to something small and rectangular pinned to the front of the girl's brown jacket, which Mai assumed must have been white at some point since the coloring was inconsistent.

"What are you doing?" she asked her friend, watching as he pulled out a dirty card from the rectangular casing.

"I'm taking her student ID card," he muttered, his eyes scanning the card briefly before placing it inside of his own wallet.

"Why?" she inquired, picking up the shoe she had dropped.

Yugi sighed and sat down against the wall. "I took the name tag of the dead girl in the classroom we were in, too. I'm going to find their parents as soon as I get out of this place. They deserve to know that their kids aren't ever coming back."

The older woman's eyes widened slowly, stinging a bit, but from tears and not from blood this time. However she couldn't find any words to say in reply, thoughts swimming in her mind rapidly, images of the two dead girls, and images of their parents finding out that their babies won't ever come back to them. It saddened her to think about it, but she knew that the parents of the young girl beside her must have dismissed her as dead long ago.

"It's strange, though…" he continued when he saw that Mai wasn't about to speak anytime soon. He brought his knees closer to his body and rested his forearm on one of them. "It's 2006, right?" Mai nodded but didn't say a word. "This girl's ID says that she's from the Blossoming Future Academy for Girls…"

"And…"

"My mother went to that school," Yugi interjected firmly. "She told me that they closed it down in the late 80's…"

"B-But that's…" _26 years ago, _which meant that the girl beside them had been dead for at least 30 years! "But surely… she must just be wearing her mother's uniform with her student name tag! And she happened to get kidnapped in it."

"Perhaps, but…" Setting the candle on the ground, he rose to his feet, walking towards the girl and crouching down right in front of her. Slowly, he moved his hand towards the bones and pushed against the girl's rib cage lightly and quickly. Though Mai hadn't expected anything to happen, she found that the bones reacted immediately to the boy's soft touch, crumbling like brittle stones and collapsing onto themselves until the girl was nothing but a pile of bones with a broken skull laying on top. "It looks like she's been dead for at least a few decades."

Taken aback, Mai immediately asked, "And how would _you_ know about stuff like that?" She was still reeling from what her friend had just done to the girl's body, and didn't even trying to dilute the hostility in her tone

He raised an eyebrow at his friend as if to say "Shouldn't it be obvious?" However, it seemed like Mai wasn't thinking clearly at the moment. "My grandpa's an archaeologist. He knows all about decomposition and things like that. He used to tell me stories about his adventures all the time and I guess I picked up a thing or two." He sighed deeply getting to his feet again. "I didn't think that I'd ever have to use that knowledge though…"

The blonde's voice wouldn't come though and the stairwell was silent again for a few moments before Yugi spoke again. "Come on, Mai. We need to find Anzu, Jounouchi and the others."

The candle, still on the ground where Yugi left it was flickering, giving the small space of the stairwell an ominous feel, and the corpse in the corner wasn't exactly helping. Reaching out for the candlestick, Mai stood up and looked down at the lower level.

"Hey, Mai," the boy asked before they began to descend the stairs. "Why aren't you wearing your shoes?"

She became aware of the shoe strap that was digging into her wrist. "Ah, I accidentally dropped the other one in one of those holes in the floor. I was planning on looking for it once I got down to the bottom level."

He nodded slowly then said, "But even if you find them, it'll be pretty hard walking around in heels. Maybe you should…" He paused for a moment, contemplating his next words carefully, almost unsure if he even wanted to say them. "You could take some shoes off of one of the dead girls if they have the same size as you"

The woman was silent in shock for what felt like minutes, the duo frozen at the top of the stairs looking down. "A-Are you serious?"

Since he had already gone and said something taboo, he continued without hesitation. "They won't need them anymore. I'm sure they'd be happy to help someone else make it out of here alive." He tried to smile reassuringly at her, letting her know that it was okay, but in reality, he was the one who needed the reassuring smile, because the look that Mai was giving him was anything but friendly. She looked like she was questioning his sanity at the mere notion of looting the dead -even if it was for necessity.

"I think I'll pass," she affirmed, sending a stern glare in his direction. "Besides, we're not gonna be here that long."

Trying not to let the glare bother him, he tried again to convince her. "There's a monster in here, Mai. Do you really wanna run around barefoot in a place like this?"

"I said I'm fine, Yugi. Let's just get away from this body…" She straightened her back, tightened her grip on the candle, and began to march down the stairs without looking back to see if her companion was following her -not that she needed to look behind her to know that Yugi was following, because who would want to be alone in a place like this.

The stairs led them to a short corridor, leading them up to a three-way fork. Should they choose to go straight, it would lead them to a blank wall and what they assumed to be another staircase, and should they turn left, they would be met with an even longer hallway which seemed to be littered in dead bodies. To their right, was a large impassible gap in the floor, and at the end of that hall was a large door.

"Do you think that's the entrance?" she asked Yugi with a slight hint of dread in her voice. If they couldn't get across that hole, then how would they leave?

"I hope not," he replied, his voice sounding weak, his head tilted slightly to the right, staring longingly at what was obviously the entrance. They were, after all, on the first floor, and logic said that any door that was much larger than the rest probably lead to the outside. He snapped the resolve back into his voice painfully and added, "If it is, then we'll definitely find another way out, because if there's a way in, there must be a way out."

Mai nodded and proceeded. Naturally, she went for the more inviting (and more available) direction -straight ahead. As she made to go forward, an unnatural force pushed her back against Yugi, causing him to stagger slightly, narrowly avoiding the great fall to his right, and gripping his friend's shoulders to steady the both of them. Before the woman could open her mouth to speak, a dull blue light illuminated the corridor and Mai's candle was blown out.

Standing and facing the duo was what appeared to be a young girl -or at least what was left of a young girl. She was wearing a high school uniform and was staring off into space as though she was looking right through Mai and Yugi, but that wasn't the most notable thing about her. In addition to her blank expression, she was missing an arm and glowing an unusual blue -she almost looked… transparent. Judging by the uneven stump at her shoulder, her amputation must not have been very pleasant.

_You must not go through here._

"Who are you?" Mai asked, trying her hardest not to gawk at the girl's right arm, or lack thereof for that matter.

_You must not go through here._

Mai's heart was thudding against her chest so hard that she could feel her skin tingling and her ribs hurting. Something in her already knew what she was encountering, but the dominant part of her being wanted to deny the truth completely.

"What do you mean?" the older woman tried again, trying to sound strong, but just like before, her attempt yielded no results.

_You must not go through here._

It was as though those were the only words this wraith knew, and repeating them on a loop was the only way for her to exist, so she continued to do so. Her voice sounded human enough, but had just enough of a supernatural tone to send shivers down the pair's spines. It didn't seem like she was going anywhere anytime soon.

"Why?" Yugi asked. "Why can't we go through?"

Remarkably, it was Yugi's question that reached the girl's ears. She finally made eye contact with the people in front of her, making Mai feel like the alternative was much more comfortable after all. The speed at which the girl turned her head to look at the spiky-haired teen in front of her gave the older blonde whiplash. The emotionless eyes were fixed completely on Yugi's confused face, and for a moment, a tiny blink of emotion could be seen in them -_dread_.

_It's already too late for you._

With that, the girl departed in a manner that could only be described as receding -or perhaps even ceasing to exist, leaving the two companions to stare at each other in wonder and contemplate just how real that young amputee was.

"Did that… just happen?" Yugi asked, his eyes fixed on the spot where the girl once stood, his mind still circulating her last words and trying to discern them. For some reason, he sensed that these words were meant only for him.

Yet Mai's mind was still trying to fathom the existence of a ghost, even after it had appeared before her. She had seen it, but she couldn't understand how something like that could be possible. "I saw it too…" she offered, releasing her arms from Yugi's grasp as he was too stunned to realize that he was still holding her.

Stepping away from his friend, he voiced his concerns out loud. "What does she mean by '_It's already too late_'?"

The woman cocked her head to the side slightly and racked her mind for any coherent explanation for the ghost's words. "What if she means that the monster is that way?"

Yugi swallowed the lump that grew in his throat at the mention of a monster, because there was only one explanation for the girl's words if she was talking about the one who was murdering the lost students in this school. "That means… the monster is already here."

"N-No!" Mai protested quickly, as if her protest alone could save her from the monster lurking nearby, as if her protest alone could send all of these strange occurrences back to the world of fiction where they belonged. "But where could a monster like that hide? How could it be here right now if it was just in the stairwell. Wouldn't we have seen it pass us by?"

Yugi sighed and began to speak. "Well, we just saw a _ghost,_ Mai. So it's very likely that it-"

"How do you _know_ it was a ghost?" she countered, cutting off his thought. "Maybe it was dark and we couldn't see well because the candle wasn't lit."

"And _how_ exactly did the candle turn off -"

"The _wind_!" she all but yelled.

"Where would that _wind _even come from if all the windows that lead to the outside don't even open!" Yugi argued, his voice becoming louder steadily along with Mai's.

"How do you _know _that!" she cried in exasperation.

"Because I tried them! None of them open, Mai! None of them! Not the ones in the classroom, or the ones in the hallway!" at this point, he was shouting. His right arm was violently extended, his hand pointing towards the inaccessible entrance-way. "And I can bet you that if I try to open that front door, it won't open." Now that he had finally said it, the corridor was quiet again. For a moment, one could say that even the rain and thunder had been put on mute, but it was only a matter of time before one earsplitting clap of thunder startled the pair out of their glaring competition.

There was a long sigh from Mai before she shut her eyes and dropped her belongings -the single shoe and the candlestick. They both dropped with a thud and a clang, startling her companion for a moment. "I guess I won't be needing these anymore."

"Are you sure?" Yugi asked, his eyes following the candlestick as it rolled across the floor and down into the wide hole between them and the entrance. He waited for the second clang that meant it had hit the floor, but it never came. His eyes twitched in irritation at the thought of their light source being lost. They could have simply found a match and relit it, but it seemed Mai had decided to be entirely too theatrical about disposing of her things.

With a nod and a pained smile, she replied, "Yeah…besides, I looked through those windows across from the staircase back when we first got to this floor. The space under the classroom we started out in is not on this floor for sure… And I don't think my shoe is worth a trip to the basement of this creepy place."

"I… see," the boy replied quietly.

"I'm not taking anyone else's shoes either, though. I don't think I could…"

"So should we go forward or -"

The building shuddered all at once. Mai's face was pale, panic and fear clouding over her eyes, her arms searching blindly for something to cling to. It was like the school was fighting something and shaking furiously, flinging Mai against one wall and Yugi against another. Cautiously yet desperately, she reached along the floor for Yugi's hand, crying out to him in a voice she couldn't even recognize as her own, barely audible and as cracked and broken as the floor. "Y-u-g-i! G-r-a-b... m-y... h-a-n-d! H-u-r-r-y!"

She could see Yugi's frightened lavender irises contracting, making the darkness of his pupils the only color visible. His hand was shaking, moving towards hers slowly, as though he were hesitant to take it. _Why wasn't he taking her hand?_

"P-l-e-a-s-e!" she screamed over the sound of the shifting floorboards. All around them, the floor was breaking and mending itself, turning the area where they were currently struggling into a completely different space. Gradually, even the floor between the two of them was ceasing to exist, and she wondered why, in this place of all places, and in this time of all times, Yugi was hesitating.

Soon the earthquake began to ease and the floor between Mai and Yugi had disintegrated completely, leaving Mai on one side of the intersection, where the ghost had manifested and where the lengthy corpse-filled hallway was, while Yugi was on the side with the entrance-way and the staircase they had originally come from. Both of them were panting heavily and clinging to the walls and the floor, relieved to have survived.

While Mai was happy to have made it, she was also disappointed that Yugi failed to grab her hand when she had told him to. Still on the ground, she made to scold the boy, but she could still see the same expression on his face as before, unchanged, like in his mind, the quake hadn't really ended.

Yugi, on the other hand, had his mind elsewhere. He couldn't even spare a glance at the older woman, nor could he say a single word to her. All he could see was something small, a girl, standing behind his companion, emitting a pale blue light, just like the ghost from before, only somehow more malevolent. She was wearing a red dress, and her hair, like tendrils of darkness, was strewn wildly across her face. She had been standing behind Mai throughout the duration of the earthquake with a small smirk on her lips, wagging her sickly finger at the teen, her vacant eyes almost daring him to make a move.

"Yugi?" the blonde asked, a spark of worry lit her eyes.

He couldn't respond to her, though, as a loud, repetitive incremental crescendo of pounding resonated through the hall just behind Mai. Her head whipped back to seek the source of the noise. The child was gone, but something else had taken her place, a man bounding towards her with heavy steps, an enormous sledgehammer slung over his shoulder. She could feel her eyes popping out of her head as he approached. She glanced back at Yugi pleadingly, reaching out towards him over the large gap, but she knew he wouldn't be able to help her now.

"Yugi, help me!"

Yugi shut his eyes tightly and the pounding stopped, but he knew that it wasn't over yet. He inched his body further away, towards the wall, covering his ears. However, nothing could block out the sickening _CRACK_ that followed, nor did it stop him from hearing the sound of something large being dragged away through the hallway.

By the time Yugi opened his eyes, he was alone.

* * *

**_So... Yoshikazu showed up pretty early on... I wasn't planning on this happening at first... but it just did, y'know._**

**_I literally know nothing about Japan, Japanese uniforms, schools or anything and I'm basically just winging it, so I apologize if any inaccuracies pop up._**

**_I would very much enjoy your feedback if you would be so kind as to give it :)_**


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